reinje's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mennonite Fashion Week This is the end of a pre-Valentine's Day love letter from Him: ...I will eat at 6:45p and have just a wee bit o� the pork. I will kiss you passionately at 6:55p and you in turn will pinch my cute Boy Scout Butt. Lovingly, He Who Thou Lovest OK, he didn't sign it that way, but it works, nicht wahr? But this reference to pork, what do you think that�s about? I�m trying not to feel offended� How cute is that , that he has a Boy Scout uniform?? I wish I had a uniform. It would make me feel very special and important. Although after being here a year, I am getting the feeling that some New Yorkers aren't used to my style of dress. I'm sure that I don�t need to spell it out for you, because a lot of Mennonite ladies dress this way. I usually wear a black gabardine dress, long-sleeved in the winter and cap-sleeved in the summer, that reaches about mid-calf. Tea-length, I think it�s called. One of my dresses has small white polka-dots and the other is plain. I have a head-covering that is made of polyester. I fix it to my hair with bobby pins that I criss-cross in order to keep my hat on in all of this vekakte wind we have here. This is just plain black. Some people only wear theirs in church, but I think it is respectful to wear it any time I�m in public. When it�s really cold out, as it has been these days during the Blizzard of Ought-Six, as I like to call it, I�m allowed to wear pants under my dress. But never pants alone. That�s for the men to wear. I wear black sensible shoes that tie up. Sometimes my feelings get hurt because I see people staring, or the more judgmental types point and giggle. I mean, it�s not for everyone, but that doesn�t mean you have to make fun. To make myself feel better, sometimes I dream about the day when I can get a new dress in a fabric that breathes. And maybe a shoe with a little heel. Would that be so wrong? I get upset when people judge me based on how I dress, but the truth is, I have been very critical of some of the other Anabaptists� choices in attire. Some of the more progressive Mennonites don�t even look any different from your regular worldly folk! The only thing that tells them apart from the world is that they go outside of the municipality to Vita or St. Pierre or Friedensfeld to dance and drink liquor instead of doing it in plain view in Stony Brook. Mei Jeen Zeit! Some of the Hutterite ladies comb milk into their hair to hold their hairstyles. By about noon, it stinkje to High Heaven! And they are very particular about facial hair on the menfolk. And on the women for that matter. The Huldomans don�t live on colonies, but they have very specific ideas about what to wear as well. But then they up and do something ultra-worldly, like have a wedding with a Walt Disney theme! A Walt Disney theme in the church basement of all, places! Ask taipraita to tell you this story; she saw it with her own eyes! Well, anyway. No use in getting worked up about what people wear. In the words of my brother-in-law Corn, �Everybody�s different, I guess�� Couture to you, too. 3:33 p.m. - 2006-02-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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